Building a program takes time, effort

During his first season coaching the Newtown High girls track and field program, Doug Russell met a lot of the goals he set for the next few years.

He led the Nighthawks to the South-West Conference titles in cross country and outdoor track and field.

However, Russell said he is not ready to move on to another project after one year just because he achieved a number of goals in his first season.

"I really want to develop a program at
Newtown High School
," Russell said. "I don't want to just have a team (for one year). ... But I think that we started building a program. When you think about it, we had 89 girls on the outdoor team; we had over 30 on the cross country team. Those are good numbers to have. I think it's real important if you want to build a program, you've got to stick around and kind of dedicate and commit yourself to doing that."

While other first-year coaches may share Russell's vision with their respective teams, statistics show they are not backing their beliefs.

During the 2004-05 academic calendar, the average coaching tenure for all area high school coaches is 6.5 years. Of all the varsity sports teams, 165 were operating under a coach who has been there for five years or less.

The higher turnover rates are leaving some athletic directors worrying about longevity when they are making hires.

"It's something that we talk about in interviews," said Newtown athletic director
Gregg Simon
, who hired four first-year varsity coaches at the school for the 2004-05 academic year. "I think it's because of turnover of coaches in a lot of different places, you want a commitment from a coach."

Some athletic directors, however, admit they will hire coaches with short-term goals if they are the best candidates because of increased pressures to field a winning team.

Meanwhile, others have less-strict initial requirements.

"My first question is, 'Are you available at 2:15?'" said Pomperaug athletic director
Joe Velardi
. "When they inquire about positions, my first question is if they're available and what their job circumstance is and all that and then look at the application process."

Listing various reasons, most athletic directors agree the pool of candidates for varsity head-coaching positions has shrunk over the years. Often times, athletic directors have to recruit prospective candidates just for an interview.

"A high-profile sport, you'll get more people involved to come in," Danbury athletic director
Chip Salvestrini
said. "The lesser, the smaller, the sub-varsity programs, if you don't have someone in the school building interested, chances are you're going to have a very difficult time finding a part-time position."

With fewer people interested in coaching a high school team, Simon said he was fortunate to land Russell for the girls track and field program. Russell, who previously coached track and field at a Virginia high school, said he was looking to return to the profession after a seven-year hiatus.

"I don't anticipate going anywhere probably prior to my retirement. Who knows when that will be and when it might happen," said Russell, who was an assistant track coach at Newtown for two years before getting promoted. "Getting back into the coaching was kind of like, I wanted to do it because my daughters have gotten older. I can get back into it and start back into coaching and all of that, and the opportunity came to do the track (at Newtown)."